


Gigil

by breaumonts (AnonymousCatastrophe405)



Series: I'll Fall With You [5]
Category: The Royal Romance (Visual Novel)
Genre: Female Friendship, Friendship, Gen, Secret Crush, puppy!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:42:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16824412
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousCatastrophe405/pseuds/breaumonts
Summary: “I thought all Americans had dogs,” Hana says, leaning over to scratch the puppy behind his oversized ears.  His tongue lulls in happiness, and they both take a moment to coo over him.  He’s so tiny, and Lisette can’t help but keep telling him so.  Maxwell is a saint for even seeing him and having the sense to save him – the dog’s about the same size as a large potato.





	Gigil

**Author's Note:**

> Jumping ahead in time to Book 2.
> 
>  **Gigil** \- _(n.) The urge to pinch or squeeze something that is unbearably cute_

Lisette prides herself on being a competent person. The savvy one, Liam once told her. She’s not easily rattled and is good at recovering on the fly when she is, even when she’s at a loss for what to do. 

She is, she realizes, quite stupid when it comes to two things, one of them being dog ownership. She grew up with cats. Cats are self-sufficient, easy, intelligent and reasonable creatures. 

“You sound like Bertrand,” Hana whispers, as if saying his name too loudly will summon him from his car further down the train. She’s trying her best to be helpful as Lisette tries and fails to find out what on earth a puppy needs, but she keeps breaking down into giggles as Lisette grows more and more frazzled.

She snaps. “Don’t put that evil on me.”

“I don’t know what that means. And you’re getting shrill again.”

Lisette opens her mouth to retort, closes it, and sighs heavily as she collects herself. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’m smart, I should be able to figure out how to have a dog…” she looks helplessly at Winston, and the nubbin of his tail wiggles. “Right, baby?”

“I thought all Americans had dogs,” Hana says, leaning over to scratch the puppy behind his oversized ears. His tongue lulls in happiness, and they both take a moment to coo over him. He’s so _tiny_ , and Lisette can’t help but keep telling him so. Maxwell is a saint for even seeing him and having the sense to save him – the dog’s about the same size as a large potato. 

“My grandmother was allergic.” Winston flops onto his side to give Hana his belly. “I never really saw the appeal. Dogs are so needy.”

“They’re like training wheels for parenthood,” Hana agrees.

“Except dogs never outgrow needing you and they’ll never outlive you.”

Hana laughs at Lisette’s frankness. “Well, yes. I suppose that makes them more… expert level babies? Yes?”  
  
“That’s a really good way of putting it.”  
  
Hana tickles Winston’s belly, and he squirms, beside himself with happiness, and tries to gently bite her fingers. She coos at him in Mandarin. “So why did you decide to keep him if you don’t even like dogs?”

Why, indeed. Hana gives her a look, and then it becomes a _look_ , and Lisette suddenly finds her train car’s closet door very interesting. Her face is warm. 

Hana smiles knowingly, just a shade away from teasing.

“Don’t give me that,” Lisette tells her. She means for it to sound flippant, and instead it comes out whiny and petulant. With an unattractive groan, she flops backwards on the bed, and Winston immediately hops up to investigate her. She smiles as he nudges her face with his tiny wet nose, as he steps and pulls on her hair. She picks him up and rests him on her chest, and he seems baffled by how to lay down until he settles between her breasts and huffs contentedly.

The other thing she’s stupid about is her extremely, wildly inappropriate crush on Maxwell.

“Give you what?” Hana asks. She leans forward with her chin on her hand, and her smile ticks a little wider. “I think it’s sweet you took Winston in because Maxwell wanted him.”

Lisette wrinkles her nose and strokes the velvety fur on Winston’s nose and ears. “It’s stupid is what it is. I don’t know how to housebreak a puppy. He’s already peed on the floor in here twice, and at this rate housekeeping is going to hate me.”

Hana looks delicately dismayed and glances at the floor. “I wonder how you potty train a dog you can’t take outside.”

“Am I setting him up to be the most high maintenance dog in the world if I teach him to use a box?”

“Like a cat?”

“Well, not with kitty litter…”

“With…” Hana idly plays with a lock of her hair as she thinks. “Newspaper?”

“Well, it’s not as if I’m reading them right now anyway,” Lisette mutters. “Maxwell forade it. He says it’s bad for my health to even look at one right now.”

What Maxwell actually said, in an almost uncanny impression of Bertrand, was that a select few reporters should be glad House Beaumont is too broke to demand recompense for the way they’re still slandering Lisette’s good name, and that reading the paper is going to give her an ulcer.   
  
He then promptly took the newspaper she’d been reading from her and absconded with it and every other one he could find, but not before apologizing for the dozen papercuts he’d caused and suggesting she try meditating to take her mind off things. She thinks he might be hoarding the newspapers as they turn up in his and Drake’s sleeper car, which is somehow sweet and ridiculous and incredibly funny to imagine.   
  
She can feel herself smiling, and when she catches Hana’s smirk, she scowls and resumes booping Winston on his nose.

It is a good idea, though, to let Winston make his messes on the already crappy newspapers. Maxwell might even let her have some if they’re meeting their fates as filler for his-by-proxy new dog’s potty box. Does that make Winston their dog, collectively? Are they sharing custody of him?

Winston is adorable and she already loves him, despite how daunting the task of keeping him is becoming, but he’s lucky he caused her to make the spontaneous, stupid decision to keep him so she could make Maxwell happy.  
  
Even though they basically just adopted a dog together. 


End file.
